Prank Cellular Calls Could Land Teen In Jail

July 18, 2003|By MATHEW PAUST Daily Press

GLOUCESTER — A Gloucester County teen faces up to a year in jail on a charge that he made false 911 reports with a cellular phone.

Sheriff Robin P. Stanaway said the 17-year-old, whose name was not released because he's a juvenile, was taken before juvenile authorities Thursday afternoon after a manhunt that tied up rescue crews and about a dozen law enforcement officers for more than an hour.

The search started when a call came to the emergency dispatcher informing the dispatcher, "I accidentally shot my wife."

The caller then hung up, Stanaway said.

He explained that equipment at the dispatcher's station indicated that the call had been made on a cellular phone. Unlike a land-based call, which automatically registers the caller's address, the location of a call from a cellular phone can be determined only by its proximity to the nearest transmission tower.

"We narrowed it down to the tower, but that still leaves a lot of area to cover," he said, noting that the tower was in the lower end of the county.

The next step was to contact the cellular service provider to identify which customer subscribed to the particular phone.

Once investigators had a name, they went looking for the subscriber. Stanaway said that deputies checked out two addresses before finding the likely one.

Nobody came to the door when officers knocked, he said. They returned to the house after learning from another teenager that their suspect had indeed made the call, as well as another one Wednesday night in which the caller disguised his voice to sound like a female. That caller also hung up, Stanaway said.

When nobody came to the door the second time officers knocked, they entered the home and found the 17-year-old inside. He admitted making both calls, the sheriff said.

"I understand that kids can do silly things, but this was a very reckless thing to do. It wasted valuable time and resources that might have been needed in a real emergency elsewhere," he said.

Stanaway estimated that at least 10 of his deputies were tied up during the incident, as well as state troopers and telephone company employees.

Mathew Paust can be reached at 804-642-1738 or by e-mail at mpaust@dailypress.com